eLearning eVolution

Many of you know that Elluminate integrates with many of the popular learning and content management systems, like ANGEL, Blackboard, Moodle, eCollege, and Sakai. But did you know that the virtual classroom is also integrated with a number of social networking and collaborative online communities as well?

Elluminate Community Partners, including Classroom 2.0, Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration (CILC), and the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA), have integrated Elluminate vRoom™ into their online communities, providing thousands of members with access to a virtual meeting room that enables them to expand educational boundaries and interact with more peers and experts. Learn more.

Get ready for EDU 2.0!

And keep on Elluminating!

- Beth, Elluminate Goddess of Communication

Lots of buzz these days about saving gas by attending classes online. According to The New York Times, 79% of the nation’s 15 million college students live off campus. So it’s not surprising that higher gas prices lead to higher online enrollments. Some schools are reporting increases of 100% or even more. Get the whole story.

So with no end in sight to rising prices at the pump, it seems likely this trend will continue. To those who complain that they don’t get the same benefit from an online class, some schools are blending online and onsite classes, where students attend face-to-face only one night a week instead of three, for example. Something else to consider is to keep the interaction of the traditional classrom going by including synchronous content with existing asynchronous distance learning. That’s where Elluminate comes in.

According to Don Carter, director of the eLearning Center at Northern Arizona University, the school integrated Elluminate Live! into Blackboard Vista 4 so that it would appear as one more tool in the course management system. Don says the biggest advantage is that the Elluminate sessions can be scheduled, accessed, and managed for enrollment, all within the CMS. And since all courses at NAU have a Bb Vista shell, this allows any course to have a simple and direct means for accessing the Elluminate collaboration environment.

If you want to know more about what Don’s up to at NAU, click here. To learn more about Elluminate’s intelligent integration solutions, click here.

- Beth, Elluminate Goddess of Communication

If you do, then you’ll want to know about Elluminate Bridge for Moodle. We’ve partnered with leading Moodle developers, Remote-Learner.net and Open Knowledge Technologies to integrate the Elluminate Live!® virtual classroom with your Moodle CMS, enabling you to add synchronous content to your distance learning courses.

In addition, Elluminate Bridge for Moodle is included in our free offer for unlimited access of Elluminate Live! Lite Edition™ for one year for any K-12 academic institution.

We’re also trying out a “new-media” style press release for the first time to announce the integration. Check it out. I’d love to hear what you think about the format.

- Beth, Elluminate Goddess fo Communication